We have been startled recently by video footage and images of Gaza in ruins.
People are moving around as if they still are able to live there despite the devastation.
It is as if walls and rooves intact are not the precondition for living there. These people are moving around in a grim acceptance of, ‘This is our life and it remains our home’.
That ‘ruins’ can still function as ‘home’ interrogates what home is.
Gaza now
These broken environments draw the eye for reasons other than shock and horror.
As a result of the bombings, the usual divisions between boundaries is broken. The roads no longer divide the houses from each other. Boundaries between properties no longer exist because they are no longer there. The dominating vertical and horizontal lines that are a feature of most built environments, are absent. As a result there is a new unity in the images, between the people and the broken buildings.
These broken buildings can still present themselves as ‘home’ to the Gazans. They are clearly determined to stay.
Gaza now
Perhaps Israel and the US believes that with destruction comes abandonment, but this increasingly does not seem to be the case.
It is as if the Palestinians themselves become the surrogate architecture, to become the dominant vertical feature, to replace the buildings.
Note: These images are drawn from the internet from various sources. We should be wary of manipulation but also trust our interpretive capacity.